I feel sure there's a constituency somewhere for shadowy family dramas of the French variety, done in a fluid blend of opera and dance and without much overt concern for sense or sensibility. Such audience members will be amply rewarded by the Oakland Opera Theater's production of "Les Enfants Terribles."

For the rest of us, Sunday's matinee performance at the Oakland Metro of this Philip Glass opera, based on the novel and film by Jean Cocteau, was pretty slow going.

PHILIP GLASS turns 70 in a few months, and the music world is already offering tributes. For its part, Oakland Opera Theater has staged the composer's "Les Enfants Terribles." But the influential minimalist composer deserves better than the uneven production that opened at the Metro Theater last weekend.

Glass' 1996 "dance-opera" is based the 1929 novel of the same name by French writer Jean Cocteau. It is the third in a trilogy of Glass works based on Cocteau stories; where the first two ("Orphee" and "La Belle et La Bete") married film and opera, "Les Enfants" relies heavily on dance to tell the story of the title characters, a brother and sister who live in a fantasy world of their own creation.[/quote]

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